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The paper analyzes the effects of financial fair play (FFP) in the competitive balance of European football industry throughout a long-term perspective.

The authors analyze the evolution of the competitive balance in the European football industry through a time-series analysis from season 1992/93 to 2018/19.

Results indicate an industry by nature dominated by a few clubs showing a general stationary behavior. FFP has had very little impact in local competitions. Just in some leagues, such as the Spanish, German, and French leagues, we can observe an increase in the imbalance in some indicators, but these results are not very robust. The improvement on the financial situation happens especially in a small group of firms that coincide with the big leagues with a strong European market orientation and strict local financial control standards.

Although the study covered 17 European Leagues, there are several leagues not accounted for and thus results should be generalized with caution.

The authors observe heterogeneity of the results of FFP in the competitive balance, associated to how the standard has been implemented in each market. This opens opportunities to study and deepen the local codes and their influence, especially in the recommendations of future financial control standards.

The authors’ main contribution to the literature is to examine the impact of the FFP rules in the competitive balance utilizing a very broad study of 17 European markets with a rich and unusual overview and long-term perspective.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to evaluate the performance of Spanish first-division basketball teams, in terms of efficiency, by defining previously a productive function and obtaining also their potential output. Second, to examine the total factor productivity evolution having information from several years, which allows us to draw conclusions about the changes in the efficient frontier.

In order to assess the efficiency level and the potential output of each team in the ACB competition, between the season 2008/2009 and 2011/2012, an input-oriented version with constant returns of data envelopment analysis is used. The total factor productivity evolution is studied by employing the values of the Malmquist index.

The main conclusion is that the final position of the Spanish basketball teams depends on the efficiency and any technological progress is needed to maintain themselves on top of rank.

Performing on the field efficiently is the best way to increase the profits by generating savings, which minimize costs. This analysis allows us to make a series of observations, comments and conclusions with regard to the management of the budgets and the relationship between efficiency and sports performance.

The innovations provided by this paper are the use of a different methodology and a different analysis unit from the previous studies. Moreover, it focuses on European basketball, specifically the Spanish league, which is considered the most powerful league after NBA and whose connection with academic studies is quite limited to date. Finally it tries to incorporate the play-off stage, which is complicated but really interesting because of the contest design of these competitions.

The purpose of this research is twofold: to evaluate the performance of Spanish First‐Division soccer teams, comparing the sports results that they actually obtain with those that they should have obtained on the basis of their potential, and to propose a future course of action.

In order to assess the potential of each team in the Spanish professional soccer league between the years 1998 and 2005 an output‐oriented version of Data Envelopment Analysis is used. In this way it is possible to calculate the number of points a team could have achieved with an efficient use of its actual resources and, consequently, its potential position in the league classification.

The main conclusion is that a team's final league position depends more on its efficient use of resources than on its potential.

From the practical perspective, the results seem to stress that measures directed at improving soccer teams' results should focus on improving their efficient use of available resources. Consequently, this work provides a preliminary result, obtained using economics tools, that suggests where soccer team managers might direct their efforts to improve their sports results.

The present work is based on the same concept of potential in sports teams as Zak et al. (1979) and Hofler and Payne (1997), but with a number of differences compared with the earlier studies. First, the potential of the teams and their actual results are compared not by assessing their efficiency in the use of resources, but by observing their final league table positions. Second, the technique which is used to estimate the frontier is in this case Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), or the deterministic non‐parametric frontier method, which has not often been used in order to measure efficiency in soccer. Finally, the object of study is the Spanish First Division soccer teams in the seasons 1998/1999, 1999/2000, 2000/2001, 2001/2002, 2002/2003, 2003/2004 and 2004/2005.

In the framework of the European Union, one of the economic sectors of most interest to politicians, academics and professionals has been the banking sector. The aim of this paper is to verify the existence of differences in the efficiency of the banking sectors and what variables determine these differences in European Union countries in the period 1988 to 1999. In spite of the role of the European Market as an element of homogenisation, the starting point of the banking sector in each country is noticeably different. In this paper we will compare the banking systems, looking at aggregate data for each country, since both the characteristics of the financial systems and the regulatory activity follow national guidelines. The efficiency values of each banking system calculated by the means of stochastic frontiers in the European Union will then be used as the dependent variable in the estimation of a regression.

Guided by the resource-based theory, the purpose of this study was to predict the role of football talent in the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) rankings of the men’s national football teams in the Copa America zone.

The study used archival data of Copa American national football teams. The dependent variable was FIFA rankings, and the independent variables were football talent (measured by the stocks of amateur footballers, professional footballers and football officials). Statistical analysis was performed using Kendall tau statistic and binary logistic regression.

The binary logistic regression results indicated that FIFA rankings were statistically and significantly associated with the stock of football officials and professional footballers – but not amateur footballers. The predictive model explained 80 per cent of the variance.

The study focused exclusively on the stock of football talent in each nation, and not alternative determinants of national football team competitiveness as economic power and quality of professional football leagues, among others.

The stocks of professional footballers and football officials are valuable sources of competitive advantage (CA) in national football team rankings.

The study highlighted the uniqueness and distinctiveness of a nation possessing large stocks of professional footballers which can boost the CA and rankings of Copa American national football teams.